


Between the Mountains and the Sky

by kaasknot



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: All comfort minimal hurt, F/F, First Kiss, Head Shaving, Okoye/W’Kabi (mentioned), Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 00:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13822737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: Ayo had been with Okoye since the beginning. She was the wordless glance of support, the wry snort at her shoulder, the laughter shared over imported Tuskers until the weight of the day faded enough to sleep. But somewhere between the cataract of twenty and the calm meander of forty, Okoye had begun taking their friendship for granted.No more, she decided.





	Between the Mountains and the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Did I plan to ship this? No. But if [Marvel is gonna be chickenshit](http://screencrush.com/black-panther-gay-characters-ayo-okoye-scene/) about including The Gays, then I guess I’ll just have to do it myself.

Okoye let out a soul-deep sigh as she entered her rooms in the palace. Two months on the border. Sixty long, challenging days spent training recruits to the Dora Milaje, hounding them through survival scenarios and interrogation scenarios, fending off sleep deprivation and tsetse flies and her own brain’s defeatism, and all the while wishing for the comfort of her bed and the warmth of her husband’s arms.

W’Kabi was eternally patient. Okoye scarcely deserved him. Two months with the knowledge that his wife was scant minutes away by air, and he hadn’t pressed her once for a visit. He was patient—but then, Okoye supposed she had had to be, as well. More than once had the Border Guard been forced to stay out for weeks at a time, tracking smugglers and poachers or heading off herds of wild elephants from Wakanda’s fields and orchards. That was the burden of responsibility they had taken, in their respective callings; that was the burden of responsibility they had taken on as spouses.

Still. It would have been nice to see him. They saw so little of each other, as it was.

The hardest part of it—insult to injury, as they said in English—was that Okoye was Border Tribe herself, born and raised. The endless savanna sky was the nursemaid of her childhood, and the mysterious, rampart mountains to the north, where lay the Wakandan heartland, the goad to her imagination. Her earliest memories were of climbing thorn trees and testing her strength against the imagined enemies of the Black Panther. She still had the Border blanket her mother had given her upon leaving for the Dora Milaje, woven by her own hands with threads of vibranium and indigo-dyed cotton—the contributions of her father, who was a master smith, and her older sister, who was a master chemist. She had not even had time to see her own family, despite two months within shouting distance of their ancestral lands.

She sighed again and leaned her spear against the doorway. These poky, closed-in rooms, half-forgotten in the shadow of the palace security perimeter, should have been anathema to her. Once, they had been; the narrow view of a palace garden, hemmed about by towers and outbuildings, the sky sharply bounded—it had taken her many months to adapt.

Okoye reached up, ignoring the ache of exhausted muscles in her shoulders and back, and unfastened her armored surcoat, draping it over the nearest chair. The evening air was pleasant on her bare arms. She moved to the window and leaned against the sill, and she breathed.

Birnin Zana. The Golden City. She didn’t know when the jungled slopes of central Wakanda had replaced the Serengeti in her heart, but she leaned against the windowsill and listened to the hoopoes sing in the trees, and the fluting hum of the maglev trains in the distance, and smelled the green, rotting, humid, _vibrant_ smell of the city. The streetlights and ancestor lights burned brightly against the encroaching night. She was glad to be home.

“Do they not have razors on the border?” a voice asked from the doorway, and Okoye found herself grinning.

“They do,” she said, turning to face Ayo. “In the civilized parts.”

“One would think, then, that the general of Wakanda’s armies would make an effort to shave.” Ayo stepped inside, her severe, harshly beautiful features softened by a smile too warm to truly be sly. “You can barely see your tattoos, anymore.” She reached out, snake-fast, and scrubbed a hand over Okoye’s head. “People will say, ‘What happened to General Okoye? She has vanished!’”

Okoye batted her away, the weariness of the training exercise lifting in Ayo’s presence. “They should ask her Second,” she said with mock-sternness. “Ayo is nosy and pushy, like all the rest of her tribe.”

“And Okoye stumbles in with branches in her hair and wildness in her eyes, like all the rest of hers.”

“It is not that bad,” Okoye said, a little embarrassed. She had not had time to wash, and she was keenly aware that she had had nothing but sponge baths taken in a bucket of water pulled straight from the river for the entirely of the exercise.

“No.” Ayo ran her hand over Okoye’s scalp again, scritching at the short growth of stubble. “It is not bad at all.”

Okoye sighed, goosebumps rolling down her neck and over her shoulders.

“How long has it been since we shaved each other?” she asked quietly, leaning back into Ayo’s fingers.

Ayo made an indistinct noise. “Twenty years, at least.”

“Sekhmet, has it been so long?”

“Somehow, we are getting old,” Ayo replied wryly. “Soon, we will shave to hide our gray hairs, so they will not put us out to pasture.”

“Aiyee, don’t say that, I already creak like like my grandmother on cold mornings.”

Ayo laughed, bright like the temple bells, and Okoye’s heart was full. Ayo dropped her hand from Okoye’s head to her shoulder. “Sit, my general, and I will tend to your hair.”

Okoye sat. Peace spread through her limbs, warm and slow like honey from the comb. Ayo knocked around in the bathroom, finding the razor and shaving oil, stropping the blade in practiced, brisk movements.

The shaved heads of the Dora Milaje were not unique, in Wakanda; but when paired with the red uniforms and silver spears, they were an effective badge. And in Okoye’s case, they bared her tattoos of rank. Only the general of Wakanda’s armies was allowed to wear them; she touched the memories, as she sat in her desk chair for Ayo.

How her hands had trembled, as she waited for the ceremony to begin! She, whose hands never shook upon the spear! But Zuri—younger then, than he was now—had said something or other, some small joke, and it had cracked through the shell of Okoye’s fear. It had reminded her that she was _General_ , and whatever hardships the post would demand of her, this day, at least, would be her triumph.

And it had been, Okoye reflected wryly, until the first tap of the needles.

“You are almost out of shaving oil,” Ayo said, emerging from the bathroom.

“I know,” Okoye replied. She had forgotten, in truth; there had been more important things on her mind.

Kimoyo beads beeped faintly. “There. I sent a message to your aide.”

“Ayo...”

“If I don’t, then you will never remember. I will not have my general be poorly groomed.” As if to punctuate this, she draped a damp, warm washcloth over Okoye’s head.

Her neck unclenched in a wave of almost-pain. Her eyes drooped closed. “Fine,” she groaned.

Ayo’s hand brushed over her shoulder, her thumb resting at the juncture of Okoye’s neck. “Relax, dear one. You are tired.”

As if those words were a summoning, all of the responsibilities waiting for her—orders for vibranium, orders for leather, orders for uniform cloth; reviews of the palace guard rota, reviews of the city garrison rota; touching in with recruiters; and, most pertinent, setting aside time to review the recent operational outcomes—swam to the forefront of her thoughts. She groaned again.

“Do not think of them,” Ayo said, her voice soothing and low. “Put them aside and be only Okoye. They will wait for morning.” She removed the washcloth and began rubbing the oil into Okoye’s hair.

Bliss. Goosebumps ran down Okoye’s arms, and heat behind them. Ayo’s fingers were gentle at first, then pressed deeper as Okoye loosened, rubbing behind her ears and digging into the still-rigid muscles of her neck.

“Why did we ever stop doing this,” Okoye said, feeling like she was floating in a warm sea. If she wasn’t careful, she would fall asleep.

“We grew up. We grew busy.” Ayo sounded sad.

“So busy we forgot to be friends? Adulthood and responsibility is a poor excuse.”

Ayo’s fingers stilled for a moment, before they renewed their motion. “What do you propose, then, my general?”

“Well.” Okoye considered her own reserves, and the steadiness of her hands. “Perhaps you do not want to risk me near your ears tonight, but in the morning, I will return this favor. Before I return to General Okoye.”

Ayo’s breath seemed to catch in her throat, and she pulled back a little.

“Ayo?”

“It is nothing,” she said, and a moment later, Okoye felt the cold press of the razor against her brow. “I... I would like that very much.”

The first stroke of the razor felt like a promise, though Okoye couldn’t sort out what kind. Ayo’s hands moved surely, the pressure precise, her motions smooth and quick with confidence. All of the Dora Milaje knew how to wield a blade, and for many, the razor had been their first.

Ayo had been with Okoye since the beginning. She was the wordless glance of support, the wry snort at her shoulder, the laughter shared over imported Tuskers until the weight of the day faded enough to sleep.

When had Okoye forgotten Ayo? Somewhere between the cataract of twenty and the calm meander of forty, she had begun taking their friendship for granted.

No more, she decided. She tilted forward so Ayo could shave the nape of her neck, and her resolve, tired though it was from the effort of keeping up with young women twenty years her junior, firmed.

When Ayo finished, her fingers light on Okoye’s cheek to hold her in position, Okoye turned into her hand. “Stay with me, tonight.”

The light in the room was dim, nothing more than the flickering dance of her ancestor light and the pooling light from the open bathroom door, but it was enough for Okoye to see the heartbeat of shock and naked longing in Ayo’s expression. Then it was gone, hidden beneath an attempted smile. “Aiyee, Okoye, what will your husband say?”

So it _was_ like that. Okoye had wondered, but she had never had the courage to test, or to ask outright. She trapped Ayo’s hand against her cheek before she could pull away. This was a conversation she had to get right. “W’Kabi and I, we have an understanding.”

Such understandings were not uncommon, between lovers separated by distance. Okoye and W’Kabi had made theirs in the early days of their relationship, and reaffirmed it in the early days of their marriage. Okoye had never partaken, because she had little time and little desire to explore beyond her husband; W’Kabi had once found deeper friendship in the arms of a fellow Border Guard, but it had been a short-lived affair, stressed by the demands of their duties.

Ayo’s eyes were wide, her voice dried up.

“You need not make any decisions now,” Okoye said, nerves as she had not felt since her youth churning in her gut. “Merely... Share my bed, as we did when we were girls?”

“I have loved you at least that long,” Ayo said.

“I am sorry I was so slow to follow,” Okoye replied, her own heart as small and broken as Ayo’s voice.

Ayo stroked her fingers against Okoye’s cheek, a single, featherlight brush that sent trembling heat down Okoye’s spine. She pulled away immediately after.

“Go shower, first,” she said, her smile true and sly once more. “You smell like a buffalo.”

“I do _not_!” Okoye squawked, and the tension broke.

“You do! Like a _dead_ buffalo!”

Okoye flung the still-damp washcloth at Ayo’s head. “See if I offer my bed again! See if I keep you as my Second one minute more!”

“You would fall apart without me and you know it,” Ayo laughed, catching the washcloth and lobbing it into the bathroom sink.

“I would,” Okoye said, sobering. “Ayo, I would not have gotten this far without you beside me.” She stood and reached out for Ayo’s hands. They were strong hands, callused and capable. “I am sorry for being so blind.”

Ayo searched her face for long moments, her eyes dark and long-lashed in the soft shadows of Okoye’s room, before leaning forward and, impossibly slowly, so carefully that Okoye felt like the costliest vibranium ore, laid a kiss upon her lips. A mere breath of touch, but it burned fire through Okoye’s body. She shivered and leaned into Ayo’s warmth.

“My general,” Ayo said, and in it, Okoye heard the echoes of her forgiveness.

***

END

**Author's Note:**

> Lol this was supposed to be a short little tumblr ficlet, SO MUCH FOR THAT
> 
> Be kind and ~~rewind~~ reblog [here](http://kaasknot.tumblr.com/post/171366914574/between-the-mountains-and-the-sky)


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